


Echo and Mirror

by El Staplador (elstaplador)



Category: Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Genre: Community: 52fandoms, F/F, F/M, Ficlet, Nostalgia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2013-11-22
Packaged: 2018-01-02 08:46:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1054809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/pseuds/El%20Staplador
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Olivia watches Viola and Sebastian together, and remembers...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echo and Mirror

A peacock screamed. From her seat on the shady terrace, Olivia watched the pair as they crossed the pale cornfield. They slowed a little, approaching the margin; Sebastian helped Viola over the stile. Beyond them, the sea glittered in the afternoon sun. Even from this distance she could see that they were laughing, and she smiled.

They were so alike, those twins, in face, in accent, in humour. The resemblance was less marked now that Viola wore women's garb, and her hair had grown again, but it was startling enough. They were no longer reflections of each other, but echoes, changed a little in the duplication. Olivia loved to watch them together, and hear in the duet the voice of the one who had never truly been.

She murmured, ' _Cesario_.' She would never say that name in Sebastian's hearing, for fear that he might be hurt. She would never say it in Viola's, lest it be thought that she desired her still. Nor yet would she say it in Orsino's hearing, for she had no desire to remind him of unhappier times. And, truly, she was not unhappy now. She loved, and she was loved, and it was enough that the present contained a little shadow of the past. And that was the nature of shadows, that they should grow less and less like their objects as the sun went down.


End file.
